[OT] Was: totally satisfied :D

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:44:34 -0400
"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:59:55 -0400, Nick Sabalausky  
> >
> > I miss words. I didn't mind non-word toolbar buttons on the desktop,
> > because then you have the concept of "hover" which will trigger the
> > words until you learn the icons (and then get annoyed because you
> > usually can't turn off the tooltips once you no longer need
> > them...).
> 
>  From my software design class in college, I learned that pictures
> are actually better *if* they are obviously intuitive.
> 

Oh I agree. It's just that iOS/Android devices seem to be breeding
grounds for obscure non-intuitive ones, from what I've seen. :(

> 
> I can't understand the lack of love for physical buttons these
> days. There are some things that need real buttons.
> 

That was one of the first things that turned me off of the iOS devices
(and the Android ones which followed the same design): My Zire 71 had
dedicated directional controls, dedicated shutter button, and four
other re-purposable buttons that defaulted to opening commonly-used
programs. I *never* found the existence of those to be a downside. And
the only reason the lack of physical keyboard didn't bother me was that
Grafitti was actually pretty good (although not *nearly* as good as the
original Grafitti which was killed off thanks to the patent trolls at
Xerox.) I didn't want to, and saw absolutely no legitimate reason to,
give that up.

What Palm did to make a good handheld interface is start with a
touchscreen, which is totally general and repurposable, but frequently
less than ideal, AND THEN identify the most common needs, both high- and
low-level (ex: "use as a camera", "directional controls") and provide
better, even if less general, controls for those. That's how you
make a good convergence device. Apple, OTOH, only did that first half
and then just stopped. And then Andorid came and copied that, but with
four physical (and non-direction) buttons which they ended up getting
rid of anyway.


> > I do wish tilting scroll wheels were more common though.
> 
> I had one of those.  the issue is, the software has to support it.
> Not all do.
> 

Yea, the damn chicken-and-egg. People need to be willing to just break
that damn cycle.

> >> > Yea, "Show hidden files" is one of the first things I do when I
> >> > install a new OS. And "Show my f*** extensions" on windows.
> >>
> >> Hells yeah!  It always strikes me as comical that MS created that
> >> "feature" and it created a whole class of openme.txt.exe viruses.
> >> Yet instead of just removing that misfeature, they built legions of
> >> extra CPU-consuming mail filtering and anti-virus software to
> >> prevent people from having any files with multiple extensions,
> >> only to piss off people who tried to use .tar.gz files :)
> >>
> >
> > Yup :)
> >
> > They seem to think their "Type" field solves the issue, and maybe
> > that works fine for average Joes, but I'm not an average Joe and I
> > don't want to be playing guessing games about "Ok, what's the
> > Microsoft term for a .XXXXX file?" Or "What the hell file type is a
> > 'Configuration settings' again?" And then there's different file
> > types that will have the *same* Microsoft "Type".
> 
> No, it's not that!  Just *SHOW THE EXTENSION*.  I don't understand
> how they think people's brains are so fragile that they wouldn't be
> able to handle seeing the extensions.
> 
> It's like Microsoft thought that was an ugly wart and fought to cover
> it up at all costs -- including spawning viruses.
> 

Well, even when showing the extension, you still can't get an actual
*column* of the extensions, nor can you sort by them. You can only do
that with the type. I did manage to find an add-on that adds an Ext
column, but it has a couple little issues (conflict with TortoiseSVN,
and ZIP files are always-at-the-top together with folders, instead of
sorted alphabetically).

I've been meaning to make a little tool I can periodically run that
just goes into the registry and sets all of the "Type" names to be the
same as the extension they're mapped to. It should be pretty trivial, I
just haven't gotten around to it yet.

> I actually don't think that is the case.  There seems to be this
> common view that people who aren't computer savvy need icons and GUIs
> and whatever to be able to use them.  If you want to see proof that
> this is false, go to any Sears store, and buy something, then watch
> the salesperson (whom I don't consider a tech guru) breeze through
> the terminal-powered curses interface to enter your order -- using F
> keys and everything else.
> 
> I think tech-unsavvy people just take more training, but they
> certainly can use any interface you give them.
> 

They're definitely able to, yes (and you provide a great example), but
the problem is they're not willing to unless it's mandatory to get
their wage/salary.


> >> What I like about the 2-finger scroll is that it goes all 4
> >> directions, it's like panning.  And I don't have to move my finger
> >> to a certain spot.
> >>
> >
> > I'm not sure this one does that (although in some apps I can do
> > that by middle-dragging on my trackball - I wish it was all though).
> >
> > But, and maybe I'm being paranoid, I have a very strong suspicion
> > that limitation is due to an apple patent. They *have* been
> > very patent-litigious in recent years, and it doesn't seem like the
> > kind of feature anyone would actually have any trouble getting
> > right.
> 
> Meh, if Apple wants to sue someone like HP over PC features, I'm sure
> HP can shoot back.  I don't think that's the issue.  Remember, most
> companies hold patents so that they don't get sued, not so that they
> sue others.
> 

Usually yes, but look at Jobs's famed "going thermo-nuclear" on
Android. He was out for blood (figuratively, at least I assume), and
it's pretty well established that they were taking their patents on the
offensive, contrary to usual industry practice.


> It's probably more of the case that Windows apps just aren't built
> to handle it.
> 

I don't think they need to be. As long as they're using the standard OS
scrollbars, that's all the driver needs to hook into. It might
not work in skinned apps, but that's the inherent problem with skinned
apps anyway, they can't always work right.


> > Yea, sounds like the one I tried years ago at some apple store.
> > IIRC, you couldn't even rest your fingers on the mouse because that
> > would be a "click". You had to hover *over* the "button".
> 
> Hm... I don't think it has to be configured that way.  The whole
> mouse "clicks" when you push it.  But you could configure just a tap
> on the surface to be a click.
> 
> In any case, not worth having IMO.
> 

It's possible we might not even be talking about the same mouse. Like I
said, the one I used was at least five years ago.

> 
> I begrudgingly signed up for twitter, so I could send a message to a
> radio host (who is a twitter fanatic, so I knew he would read it).
> 
> Since then, I've tweeted a few things, but I'm not crazy about it.
> At least you aren't expected to "follow" everyone you met for 5
> minutes.
> 

Before I finally switched to linode and VPS-hosting, my last shared
web-host at one point made the decision to *only* send out import
maintenance notices to twitter. Nevermind that they actually *had*
support contact emails from me and the rest of their users.
Nevermind that not everyone's interested in following twitter,
contrary to popular beleif. That pissed me off. Actually that was one
of the first in a series of blunders that marked their downfall, IMO.
About a year later they went under and got bought out. Right as I was
fed up and about to switch to a linode VPS anyway :)